More toys on the rug

More toys on the rug, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Jon, Brenden and I are getting over colds. Colds suck, but better this week than next.

I had the niftiest dream last night! I was out on a beach somewhere collecting shells, clams, pottery shards, glass, etc. - All kinds of debris that had washed up on the beach. Then I forget the transition, but I ended up in a small kitchen somewhere that was jammed with all kinds of jars, bottles, books, etc. It was cluttered, but not unkempt. And Damian Lewis was cooking lunch for me! Then I woke up. Wish I remembered what we were talking about. Wish I could remember what he cooked for me.

What I'm Reading: I flew through Richard K. Morgan's science fiction series about Takeshi Kovaks, a somewhat messed-up ex-soldier. The first novel had a Raymond Chandler feel to it as Kovaks solves a murder mystery. The thing that I really liked about his character is he is in no way misogynistic unlike most gumshoes. It's a nice change. There's a lot of sex and violence in his books. That's not a warning, that's a recommendation.

I also read After Sunset, a recent Stephen King collection of short stories. I enjoyed them all. If there's a theme running through the book the stories don't just deal with horror and dying (common to just about everything King writes) but death and what happens afterwards. One of his short stories is about a man who played hooky from work on September 11, 2001 so he got to live. His survivor's guilt externalizes in the forms of items that his co-workers possessed, from glasses to desktop knick-knacks. That story made me cry.

I remember reading Carrie when I was maybe 14 or 15. That would mean only The Shining, The Stand, and Salem's Lot had also been published at that time. I think that makes Stephen King books one of my constants.

In totally unrelated news, HBO has given a greenlight to a pilot based on George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, books that piss me off sometimes but I still hold interest in. Now I wonder if we're going to have to get HBO again, because Lena Headey (Sarah Connor in the late SCC series) has been cast as Cersei Lannister. I was scared she would be cast as Catelyn Stark, whom I do not like. I hate Cersei, too, but it's more fun hating her because she's evil. Catelyn is just an unlikable character. Sean Bean is cast as Eddard Stark, and why does that not surprise me?